Join me in my adventure as I serve a mission in California San Fernando for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints!

Background

Saturday, May 10, 2014

Getting Better!

This week did get better as I hoped it would. We went to our Bishops house to go teach Rock the next lesson but we didn't teach him. The Bishop did! It was great. He taught about the Priesthood. Once again we were able to see how the influence of the spirit works on Rock's kids. We told them that once their dad has the priesthood he can baptism them if they choose to be baptized. One of the sons just gets so excited when we talk about it. He lit up and you could feel the happiness and excitement emanating from him. The only sad part is that other son is refusing to be happy about anything to do with baptism. I am sincerely concerned for him. Rock is getting his first true test after being baptized. His company his having a business trip down to Cabo, Mexico. In this trip there is a lot of drinking and other temptations. Rock has had to mentally prepare for this trip for 3 weeks and has set limits and boundaries of activities he will and will not participate in. We have been on the edge of our seats for 3 days now because we cant talk to him. We just keep praying he will have the spirit with him and make good decisions. If he can get through this trip he can overcome anything!

Yesterday was an amazing day! We had the special privilege and opportunity to have Elder Dallin H. Oaks and Elder Wong come! It was so fun to watch him arrive early and go around the entire building to meet everyone! Our Stake has over 1300 people in it and a good chunk of those individuals got to meet him. My companion and I happened to be standing next to some other Sisters and when Elder Oaks shook our hands. He took just a couple extra seconds to ask where each one of us is from. It was so fun to see him get interested in the people. It was an amazing conference and there was a lot of laughter. Elder Oaks is funny!!!!!! He had met a lot of our investigators and made a point to speak to them about the Restoration and the Plan of Salvation. He is the only person I have ever heard gracefully bring up our Heavenly Mother. It was quite amazing and had me on the edge of my seat...... I got worried for a little second. hahahaha silly me. Probably one of my most favorite parts of the talk and the most memorable was when he shared a story of cornering his RM grandson and asking him why he wasn't married yet. His grandson's response was, "Well grandpa in the last year I have dated 106 different girls." To which Elder Oaks responded after thinking about it for a short time, "It seems you are putting forth a lot of effort and I commend you. But your standards must be wrong if you have not found a wife in those 106!" He is now married. But the memorable part of this story was when he raised his voice pounded the pulpit and said to every young man of the dating age. "STOP HANGING OUT! YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE DATING!" I will tell you every Elder we saw after the meeting felt chastised in advance. It was so funny! There were many other things said that all missionaries just drooled over. He referenced the Articles of Faith 1 and 3. They are the short statements of pure doctrine of the Restoration and the Plan of Salvation. He also said that the Roman Catholic church is our natural ally. Their beliefs run so closely to ours that they are our best natural ally. The church has done a lot to put our forces together to stand for right throughout the world (i.e. abortions). It was insightful to say the least.

We tried to ride bikes again this week. Last week my companion crashed. It was hilarious after I figured out she was okay! On this weeks particular day we talked to some very nice people who took the time to have a conversation with us. It must have been the Lords will that we just talk to them and no one else in the Park at the moment because as we went to continue on up the hill, my bike pedal snapped off! Not so funny! I had to walk up the rest of the gigantic hill! =) Luckily I could coast down the hill back to the apartment. So now I need to go get some new pedals.

It has been super hot this week. We have already broke 100 degrees. It just tells you what this summer is going to be like. Not cool weather! Everyone is worried about fires and how hot it is going to get. Its not normal at all that we are heating up this fast.